Deise boss Derek McGrath, pictured with Kevin Moran and the National Hurling League trophy at Semple Stadium. Sunday's provincial showpiece may yield more silverware.
“Prior to the League Semi-Final, I made the point that Seamie Callanan got three something off the Galway full-back line last year in the Qualifier, he went onto the Quarter-Final and he got 11 points, he got 2-5 off Shane O’Neill in the Semi-Final, he got six points, five of them from play off JJ Delaney in the drawn (All-Ireland Final) match and he got 2-4 in the replay, so the sense of pressure or otherwise that was on anyone that was marking Seamie Callanan was insignificant on our behalf because if he does any damage on our backs, our backs are going to be no different than the top quality backs that are out there so there was a sense of, well, these fellas are quality no matter who or what is on them. Richie McCarthy (Limerick) is an absolutely brilliant full-back, after all but Tipperary can do that to you – we’re just looking forward to the challenge and the honour of taking them on and we’re hoping to be competitive.”
He’s some man for statistics, is Derek McGrath. The Waterford manager, who cut a relaxed figure during his pre-Munster Final breeze shooting with the media at the Granville Hotel, rattled off all of the above without drawing breath.
It prompted the question: does the De La Salle clubman consider himself a bit of hurling nerd when it comes to stats and GAA trivia in general?
With as wide a grin as the fourth estate has witnessed from Derek since he succeeded Michael Ryan as Deise bainisteoir, he happily replied: “That’s very close to the bone,” before jokingly pointing at selector Fintan O’Connor “and he’s worse!”
“A little bit, yeah, I suppose – but I wouldn’t consider myself an obsessive character…I mean I’d have the videos at home of the 1990 All-Ireland Final; I sat behind the goal in the Nally Stand that day, supporting Galway (against Cork).
“But look, I’m a Gaelsport (magazine and annual) addict since 1981 when I started collecting them, it’s just the way I was reared. But I would be a bit of a hurling nerd – it’s not a case of me deliberately showing off the stats or a case of me checking up on things like that before I came in here tonight. I’ve always been like that.
“And I think you can justify to your team, and when you have people working as hard as Fintan and Dan (Shanahan), and it’s not that you know your stuff as such but it shows that you’re putting the work in, and that when there’s an honesty to your approach, you’re just hoping that it will be reciprocated on the pitch.”
In the midst of our interview, Derek drifted back to discussing that magnificent 1990 All-Ireland Final, and the forensic manner in which he recalled that decider offered some insight into how forensic a manager he is. And his eyes danced about as he went back a quarter century.
I get the impression that if McGrath felt the need to individually turn over every pebble on the Gold Coast to glean some form of advantage over Tipperary this Sunday, he’d still be down his knees doing just that.
And given how his panel has warmed to the challenge to date this year, McGrath would have 30-plus lads for company, seeking out that extra percentage to haul his men first past to the post and back to the top of the Munster hurling summit.
When he speaks glowingly of Tipperary, it doesn’t feel like he’s intentionally deflecting the spotlight off his own team. He speaks of hoping to see Noel McGrath back in action too, and one feels the hurling supporter, as opposed to the inter-county manager, breaking out in him.
But he knows he’s got a hell of a group of players at his disposal, and he’s hopeful they’ll bring their A game to bear on the second greatest day in the hurling calendar.
“I’m very excited about Sunday, I’m really looking forward to it, but I’m anxious at the same time,” he continued.
“I’m anxious in the sense that everything we’ve been trying to do on the pitch over the last few weeks will translate onto the actual event, that’s what you’d be hoping for. There’s no guarantee of that, of course, but that’s been the thought process in the two weeks leading up to Sunday’ we’re just trying to ensure that everything is in place, that the team is ready, that the players are free to concentrate on the task in hand. That’s what we’re hoping for anyway.”
It says a great deal for the phenomenal progress of Waterford that, among supporters at the very least, much of their pre-Munster Final chat has focused on the location of the match as opposed to the match itself or Tipperary’s undoubted quality.
Few of us, in the wake of the Division 1B fixtures announcement for 2015, were entertaining thoughts of promotion, let alone League success and a return to the Munster Senior Final. And that’s a fact.
Don’t forget, only Galway, Dublin and Laois, all in Walsh Park, represented the team’s scalps in 2014. Now they’re 70 minutes away from 10th Munster title, having won eight and drawn one in nine competitive outings this year. The form of champions.
“That’s a fair point,” McGrath acknowledged. “The lads have done very well in terms of their whole approach, it’s great to be there and it’s really something to look forward to.
“I think the general perception is that Tipperary and Kilkenny are a good bit ahead of everyone else so in many ways, you can even look forward to Sunday’s match, not necessarily in a more relaxed manner, but in a manner whereby expectation has been eased given the level of Tipperary’s performance against Limerick.”
So has the quality of Tipperary’s semi-final display actually benefited Waterford’s preparations to a certain extent?
“Well, I don’t know. I mean…the confidence they’ll have gained from their performance in Limerick, going to Limerick, dealing with a partisan crowd, silencing the crowd and just being ravenous in terms of their work rate and play.”
Restricting Padraic Maher’s upfield forays and cutting down the space in which Seamus Callanan, Bubbles Dwyer, Bonner Maher, Jason Forde et al operate in better than most will surely form part of Derek McGrath’s approach.
And that brought us onto the system, something one might be mistaken that Waterford and Waterford alone have been using in any way, shape or form in 2015. Show me a team, even the underachieving sides, that don’t have one, after all.
Said Derek McGrath: “I think, and it’s not been disrespectful to anyone, but we actually have changed things in some games – and maybe people haven’t picked up on that and again I don’t mean to be disrespectful to anyone in saying that. I think we’ve played differently in a number of games.”
Cognisant of what can happen when a team significantly alters its game plan, he continued: “And, without wishing to sound like I’m going down the hurling nerd route, but I think Dublin, before they played Cork in the (All-Ireland) semi-final two years ago, they had a system in place, and I think they changed it in the first half of that game whereby they just played fairly conventionally, 15 on 15.
“Dublin acknowledged at half-time that they were going to go back to the system that they were used to; now whether that was pre-planned or not by Anthony Daly, well I just don’t know.
“But if a situation arises and we lose the game next Sunday and the common theme afterwards is that there was no Plan B or C or D, the reality is different in our camp, because there is.
“We try to roll them out in training or in games and maybe people don’t pick up on it because it’s so subtle, but it’s all about imposing such plans without ‘hamstringing’ guys in terms of the fluidity of their play, and making them somewhat robotic – a lot of it is down to the boys making decisions themselves out on the pitch, it’s not Playstation, you know what I mean…
“You always hope that your players will adapt to a situation as they see it in front of them, nor can you be relying on a live feed coming down from you on an iPad telling you that James Barry has had 12 possessions or Paddy Stapleton has had 10 possessions and so on.
“I think you have to allow your players to have the freedom to deal with situations as they present themselves in front of them…it’s the players who will ultimately win a game for you, after all.”
Derek McGrath readily conceded that his men will have to produce their very best to overcome Tipperary in their own backyard this Sunday.
“We’ll need everyone to be operating at 100 per cent and I think that’s a realistic expectation, whether you’re a pundit or a neutral observer…and I saw a voxpop recently where nine out of 10 surveyed went for Tipp in terms of who’ll win the All-Ireland. But we’re not trying to play things down or anything or making out that we’ve no chance; of course we feel we have a chance. We’re going there to play.”
He continued: “We’re very at ease at things as a management as we’re witnessing at first hand what the players are putting into this.
“We’re a lot more at ease than we were last night and that’s not based on us winning matches but based on the fact that the boys are so honest in terms of their preparation, just as Tipperary are – we can live with what comes with the day because they have given it so much, they’ve given it everything they can – which means we can sleep easy. Their efforts are total.”
Among those emptying the tank and delivering week in, week out has been captain Kevin Moran, whose recent form, according to RTE pundit Tomás Mulcahy, has been Shefflin-like in its effect on the entire team.
Derek McGrath replied: “In terms of leadership qualities, Kevin has been massive and the way he’s approached the captaincy. He’s leading. He’s emptying himself on the pitch and that’s all we can ask of every player.
“We’ve encouraged talking in the collective all year and Kevin has led that, he’s encouraged everyone to buy into what we’re about and there’s a real relationship between myself, Dan, Fintan and Kevin in terns of the message we want to convey to the lads.
“He’s led the buy-in and he’s been a key figure in that, as have Michael Walsh, Shane Fives and Shane O’Sullivan, who hasn’t had a huge amount of game time this year, but Shane has been absolutely brilliant behind the scenes in terms of his whole approach to the team ethic, and that probably applies to the players on the Tipperary bench as well.”
Keeping every player happy all of the time is impossible, but Derek McGrath has fostered a great “buy-in”, to use his own phrase, when it comes to the Waterford cause.
That Tom Devine and Shane Bennett, to name but two, have contributed so well in the closing moments to date this season provides the Deise boss which something none of his modern day predecessors had to the same extent: real strength in depth and match-winning quality on the line.
“It’s gone like rugby nowadays: it’s a 20-man game and you don’t see too many lads throwing their helmet or their hurley down, questioning why they’ve been taken off. There’s thought behind every decision…and if you’re comfortable in explaining each decision to the player involved beforehand or afterwards, then I think that makes you as a manager more comfortable in your own skin, and I think players can acknowledge that in return.”
So there’s a lot to look forward to, then? “Very much so. We’ll be facing quality opposition on Sunday. We know what Tipperary can do to us, we know what they’re capable of but we’re going to Thurles to play and to enjoy it.” And so say all of us, Derek.
